There's no windows on a sub. They started adding 'em to subs back on cradle once they figured out the first metallo glass alloys. Helps stop the crew from going too crazy.
Not on Europa. Not even the new stuff is rated for the depths you need to hit to dodge by sub-crust sonar installations. Not that it would matter, no light gets past even the first click of opaque surface ice, let alone ten.
You undock, drop through the bay tunnel, dodge a couple of skyscraper sized spires of brine ice sticking down from above, and then nothing. Pings don't find anything bigger than sediment for weeks, and you know it's darker out there than it is on the surface.
Sometimes you gotta do a walk, hop out to check external equipment, so you slip into the clamshell and hope the last guy didn't sweat too hard. Then you sit through inspection. Rooks always complain about inspection, but when your CO points out you didn't bother to tether for the first time you shape up.
Yeah the clams have maneuvering, you could get up to about half fhe speed of the sub at full if you had to, but thats not what the tethers for.
You step out that hatch for the first time and you see the little bits of crud floating in the black, lit by torch like stars? That's magic.
You step over to the side, look down, and see the black that goes forever? Well, that's when you feel the jolt, hear the rattle of the tether going tight at your back and Ops shouting into your headset. Dangling maybe 20 meters under the hull, nothing between you and eternity.
Heard someone say that if you dropped for real you'd sink for a month at least before you hit anything solid, if theres anything solid at all.
And look, I know that after all that you're nodding your head and shootin' a look at your friend accross the table. The SO sardines have the crazies, always so sad to hear it you know? But believe me when I say that when you're falling asleep you can hear them, tapping on the outside of the hull, right by your head.
There's something out there, and if I'm really lucky I finish my tour before we find out what.
-blackbox retrieval, author unknown.
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